The annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting was held Dec. 9-13, 2013 in San Francisco. As part of the meeting, TPE sponsored two sessions entitled “Environmental and Eco-system Changes in the Third Pole and other Mountain Regions”, which were convened by TPE co-chairs YAO Tandong (Chinese Academy of Sciences), Lonnie Thompson (the Ohio State University), and Volker Mosbrugger (Senckenberg Research Center for Nature Study), together with ITP scientist Prof. ZHANG Fan.

In addition to 25 poster presentations, the session also included oral presentations by renowned scientists from institutions of the US, Germany and China: Two Extreme Climate Events of the Last 1000 Years Recorded in Himalayan and Andean Ice Cores (by Lonnie Thompson), Different glacier status with atmospheric circulations in Tibetan Plateau and surrounding regions (by YAO Tandong), Influences of the climate changes and pollutants over the Asian Monsoon/ Tibetan Plateau region on transport of ice, aerosols and water vapor to the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (by Rong Fu, University of Texas at Austin), Dynamical, thermodynamical and hydrological effects of the Third Pole (by Peter J Webster, Georgia Institute of Technology), Contemporary Asian High Mountain Glacier Mass Balance Estimates from GRACE Gravimetry (C. K Shum, the Ohio State University).

More information, including abstracts and full presentations, can be found on the TPE website at www.tpe.ac.cn.